Guess who we’ve got here in the house!” exclaimed Pete Greenough, encountering Jack Billings in front of the cottage just before supper time that evening. Jack, who had been playing baseball, carried a favorite bat in one hand, and now he raised it threateningly.  
“Go ahead with your joke,” he said grimly.
 
“It isn’t a joke at all,” Pete protested. “It’s something about this chap Merrill. Tad just told me. Who do you suppose he is?”
 
“Tad?”
 
“No, Merrill, you silly goat!”
 
“His name is Rodney Merrill,” replied Jack calmly. “He lives in Orleans, Nebraska, and he is a younger brother of Ginger Merrill, of blessed fame!”
 
[104]
 
“Oh, somebody told you!” exclaimed Pete disappointedly.
 
“No, I guessed it, two days ago. I heard Merrill say he was from the west and I stopped in at the office and looked him up. Then I got an old catalogue and found that Ginger came from the same town. After that it was only necessary to compare their looks.”
 
“Well, why didn’t you tell a fellow?”
 
Jack shrugged his shoulders as he entered the gate. “He didn’t seem to want to have it known, Pete, so I kept still.”
 
“That’s what gets me,” said Pete. “Why the dickens did he keep so mum about it? Anyone would think he was ashamed of it! Say, it’s a bit of a feather in our hat, isn’t it? Having Ginger Merrill’s brother in our house, I mean.”
 
“Why, yes,” answered Jack, taking a seat on the top step and studying a nick in his bat. “It’s going to be a little hard on Merrill though,” he added soberly.
 
“What is?”
 
“This being Ginger’s brother. Fellows will expect a lot from him, won’t they?”
 
“I guess so,” acknowledged Pete thoughtfully.
 
[105]
 
“Yes, and from what I see of young Merrill he’s just a decent, ordinary sort of kid. That’s what I mean. If he doesn’t turn out a great football player or a great something else, the fellows are going to be disappointed in him. Besides that, Pete, he stands a pretty good show of getting a swelled head on his brother’s account, eh?”
 
“Oh, we’ll look after that,” returned Pete confidently. “If he shows any of that sort of thing we’ll take it out of him. He doesn’t yet, though, does he? His keeping quiet about Ginger looks as if he was sort of a modest kid, eh?”
 
“Yes, unless——”
 
“What?”
 
“Unless he did it to get a better effect, if you see what I mean.”
 
“Can’t say I do, Jack.”
 
“We-ell, he must have known that it would come out sooner or later. Maybe he thought if he kept quiet about it it would make more of a sensation when it did become known.”
 
“Oh!”
 
“That’s only what might be, Pete. I’m not saying it’s so. From what I’ve seen of Merrill[106] I rather like him. Perhaps a little too—too independent, but a decent sort for all that. What he’s got to be made to understand, Pete, is that being Ginger Merrill’s brother butters no parsnips; that if he’s going to make good he’s got to forget that and dig out on his own account.”
 
“Going to tell him so?”
 
“Me?” Jack shook his head slowly. “No, at least not in so many words. Perhaps a hint will do him good some time though. I don’t believe in interfering much, Pete. Every fellow has his own row to hoe, and you can’t help him very much. For my part, I shan’t say anything to him about his brother. Better let him think we don’t care much about whose brother he is. Who made the discovery, Pete?”
 
“Cotting. Tad says Cotting knew him the moment he saw him, and came up and shook hands with him.”
 
“Oh, is Merrill out for the team?”
 
“Not yet. He and Tad were looking on. He’s going out to-morrow though, Tad says. Cotting wouldn’t take no. Merrill says he can’t play, but Cotting wouldn’t believe him. Neither[107] do I. Stands to reason that Ginger Merrill’s brother can play football, doesn’t it?”
 
“I don’t see why, Pete. Anyhow, I hope he makes good. It’ll save him a lot of trouble if he does. Let’s go and wash up.”
 
Rodney came down to supper looking self-conscious in spite of his efforts not to. He suspected that all the other fellows in the house had learned of his relationship with the redoubtable Ginger, for Kitty had shaken him gravely by the hand ten minutes before and assured him that he considered it an honor to have Ginger Merrill’s brother for a roommate. Kitty also declared that the records showed Ginger to have had one of the finest chest developments in the history of the school, a fact which ennobled that youth more in Kitty’s estimation than all his football prowess. Pete Greenough, reading Rodney’s expression aright, recalled Jack’s theory and concluded that perhaps after all young Merrill wasn’t such a modest kid as he had thought. At table, however, not a word was said about Ginger Merrill until Mrs. Westcott herself brought up the subject. Wasn’t it delightful, she asked, to have dear[108] Stanley’s brother with us? Whereupon Jack said:
 
“Pass the bread, please, Tom,” and Warren Hoyt expressed the hope languidly that Merrill could chase a pigskin half as well as his brother had. That gave Rodney the opportunity he wanted.
 
“I can’t though,” he said bluntly. “I’m no good at football and I don’t want to play it. I told Mr. Cotting so but he insisted that I was to come out to-morrow. I won’t stay long though.”
 
“No, he will drop you quick enough if you can’t deliver the goods,” said Tom Trainor. Tom spoke from sad experience. Stacey Trowbridge looked across from the other end of the table.
 
“You’ve played, have you, Merrill?” he asked quietly.
 
“Yes, a little. Enough to find out I’m no good at it.”
 
“You can’t tell,” said Pete. “Cotting has a wa............